“We, the female and male inhabitants of Gdańsk, call with an urgent request ...” begins an appeal to the City Council of Gdańsk to resettle families and orphaned children from the city of Aleppo in Syria. “Idly watching the fate of these people is unbearable and inhumane. Fortunately, we have an independent, local government of the free and proud city of Gdańsk. We are counting on you.”

The Russian Federation is home to a large number of ethnic republics that briefly attempted to declare their sovereignty during the collapse of the Soviet Union. A similar series of crises now facing the country should encourage debate on what should be done if such areas once again push for more autonomy.

China’s reaction to the ongoing war in Ukraine appears ambiguous to say the least. Often calling for both sides to talk, the country appears uncertain as to its long-term goals. However, there may be more to this outlook once China’s traditional strategy is understood.

The Polish psyche is affected by the tragic conflict between what is ours and not ours. This huge dissonance stems from the fact that the outsider is a native: both come from the same country, share a nationality, live among their own people and, at times, inhabit the same person. Hence, Poles’ attitude towards others, to a great extent, arises from their inner struggle with “the outsider within”.
“Pretty. Shame it’s not ours.” This sentence is uttered by one of the characters of Zimna wojna (Cold War), a film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. An audience unfamiliar with the intricacies of Polish culture will find it hard to recognise the drama lurking behind these seemingly innocent words. Ours, in this context, is Polish, not ours is part of the Lemko people’s cultural heritage.

A conversation with Miljenko Jergović, a Balkan writer. Interviewer: Aleksandra Wojtaszek

ALEKSANDRA WOJTASZEK: We are meeting thanks to the recent publishing of a collection of your essays by the Kraków-based International Cultural Centre tilted Muscat, lemon and turmeric. It seems that a common denominator for these essays is Central Europe, which binds the descriptions of cities and biographies in your texts together. Do you believe that a Central European identity exists? If yes, what are its features?

MILJENKO JERGOVIĆ: I believe that we could talk about it in an unorthodox fashion. What is common to all of the peoples living in Central Europe is primarily all the traumas of the 20th century, such as the concentration camps. We are also connected by historical experiences such as being a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the bloc of socialist countries after the Second World War. In one sense, we lived our lives in a border region.

The Kremlin has nothing to offer Russian citizens except stability without economic growth and no clear perspective. This will eventually bring down Vladimir Putin’s regime. The opposition, however, is not yet fully ready to take power when that happens.

“Yes, Putin has many shortcomings, but there is no alternative to him.” I have heard this phrase in Russia countless times, from shopkeepers and artists, to professors of physics and retirees. I read it in Russian (mostly) state-controlled media. Nevertheless, I am surprised every time I hear it. “Well, of course not,” I usually reply. “After all, Putin takes all necessary steps so that no alternative will arise.” It is the main goal that the giant state propaganda machine, special services, heads of Russian regions and ordinary officials pursue 24 hours a day. Nineteen years after Vladimir Putin was first elected as president, the argument that there is no alternative illustrates only one thing: the absence of democracy in Russia. For many years, the country has been stuck with an authoritarian regime that has all but eliminated political competition and blocked any attempts to change the system. This is the regime’s strength as well as its weakness. Using an expression coined by leading Russian political analyst Lilia Shevtsova, the increasingly authoritarian regime needs a democratic form of legitimisation – this is the main political contradiction of the current regime in Moscow.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of Ukrainian migrants arriving to Poland, but their presence is visible. In Wrocław, a city with slightly less than 630,000 residents, between 51,000 and 64,000 are Ukrainian – that is around one in every ten residents.

I arrange a meeting with Alina in a Wrocław pub called Idyll.. Wrocław is a city in the western part of Poland. Before the Second World War it was a German city known as Breslau. After the war and the border changes, the Germans were expelled and Poles moved in, many of whom were from the eastern part of the former Polish lands. Today, it is a lively city with a growing population – many of whom are immigrants from Ukraine.

Get this issue delivered straight to your doorstep. Click here to subscribe online today.  If there is one phrase that is being repeated like a mantra in 2017, it is that “the world is upside down”. During public and private discussions from Warsaw to Prague, Berlin, Brussels, London and even Washington we see a growing […]